Well, week three ended and I'm already deeply in week four, wow, you get the impression it never ends, there's always something more that makes you turn your way of thinking, around.

Week three was a full and thorough journey in elements, what they are in a system, and how we can analyse them. We then got to understanding how to put them together with zones and the relation of these with slope, orientation and energy sectors. Lots of stuff.

I've arrived to the conclusion that the best way for me is to be on track with the online lessons, and stay one chapter behind reading Mollisons designers manual, it gets so much easier, and you have your online walkthrough for the manual.

Whats interesting is that you see how permaculture is not dogmatic as some people intend it. On the contrary, hey you know what you can miss out zones! you don't have to stick them all in your design. It seems a stupid thing to underline but there are people that sort have this dogmatic view of certain holy icons of permaculture design.

One thing that got to my head is that we have a way of thinking, oh my, we ruined nature, we ruined ecosystems, and now we have to put things right, and we do the same error we think it's all about us, mankind that can ruin or build by itself. Of course we have the second option that is to leave ecosystems to heal by themselves in hundreds of years, a monument to our sense of guilt, we just stop ruining an area leaving it to itself, incapable to act. Otherwise we have the option to apply permaculture and do something different, get together with nature and learn! it's about teaming with nature, with elements, with energy flows, and seeing we are an element, no more important than a chicken, or a plant.

We have to get out of this centric view of us and the rest of the world, and step on to the path together.

Week three is still about the way we have to think, as Geoff puts it, at this point of the course we are not being told how to act but how to think. We have to change, reverse, multidimensionalise are way of thinking, and then we'll be able to grasp the action. Before we tackl the fertiliy of the soil stuff I guess we have to build fertility in our minds.

As Geoff puts it: designing a system is all about having fun! and that's what I'm doing. On to week four: patterns